


Kipo And The Age Of Wondercheese(pizzas)

by two_drama_nerds_in_a_boat



Category: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts (Cartoon)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Humor, Pizza, Some background on Benson and Dave's friendship, They have one braincell and it bounces between them like hot potato, Wolf and Kipo and Benson and Dave are absolute Bros., bc he thinks they are irresponsible but of course this only makes things crazier, beta reading? idk her, don't ask me when this takes place I don't know, when they move in with Kipo's dad he confiscates it IMMEDIATELY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:00:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24516556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/two_drama_nerds_in_a_boat/pseuds/two_drama_nerds_in_a_boat
Summary: A story about Benson, Dave, Kipo, and Wolf, and friendship and a rare plant known as Pizza.Rated Teen because Dave drops an F-Bomb once. That's literally the only reason.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 81





	Kipo And The Age Of Wondercheese(pizzas)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [River_Banks_Pond](https://archiveofourown.org/users/River_Banks_Pond/gifts).



> okay so this fic was pretty much born from a conversation i had with a River_Banks_Pond that went like this: 
> 
> River: Question: do Land ppl have pizza??/ do mole ppl have pizza??  
> Me: Hmmmmmmmm
> 
> And then evolved into,
> 
> Me: what if burrows don’t have pizza either what if its a lost art. what if they re-discover pizza when they’re aboveground and dave’s like “oh what’s this” and legit just eats 100+ year old pizza.
> 
> So yeah.

It’s kind of a funny story, because it can’t really be tracked to a beginning or end, so it’s better to just start early on. Just in case. It’s mostly about pizza, and somewhat about friends, but it starts with a boy and a bug baby.

Benson has always liked music. He can’t remember a time when there wasn’t a walkman in his hands or pocket. Every moment of free time he has, ever since he could walk, he’s been looking for tapes. Breaking into ancient music stores, checking out old cars, old houses. The hard thing about tapes is that they don’t last long in the heat of the sun, and where they are, it’s always burning outside. The tapes melt. He finds a lot that don’t play. 

When he was maybe five or six years old, he found the biggest score in his life; a shop full of retro tech (specifically stuff related to listening to music) and he hit the jackpot. A locked part of an underground mall, with a door that opened after a quick lock-pick, revealing shelves and shelves and shelves fully stocked with CDs and records and tapes. All of them in near-mint condition, preserved by the dark must of the underground, the previously caved-in tunnels that had led here, the locks and the doors that were hard to open by Mute standards, but more than simple for human hands. Benson was a kid, then. It was probably for the better - kids have an easier time ignoring the human skeletons behind the counter, an easier time pretending that life is good as long as you have a nice soundtrack to go along with it. And kids are more accepting of change. It’s why when he found a bawling bug baby in the back of the shop, behind the counter, he didn’t abandon it. He looked it in the eyes, knowing full and well that it was a mute, and he brought it out of there and into the light. 

Benson saved Dave, that day. They don’t talk about it much. 

Dave was a baby when they met, the first time, which was probably for the better, because Benson wouldn’t have stuck around for an ancient old bug man. He hates to admit it, but it’s true. 

They like to say that they raised each other - with Dave’s speedy aging cycle, and the two meeting right around Benson’s fifth or sixth year, the parenting alternated, sometimes. Mostly, it was Dave looking after Benson. Benson was little, after all, just lost his parents and trying to survive on his own. New to the world. But when Dave was a baby, it was Benson’s turn to take over, and it was a rhythm they learned to take in stride. They were like brothers, more than anything. But Dave still taught him a lot of stuff: The Earth is flat, for one. Another being that you can’t trust anyone, and you have to look out for your brother - in this case, that was Dave. 

But most importantly, Dave taught Benson about pizza.

And boy, did Benson love that lesson. 

“Sometimes there are thin, square cardboard boxes on the ground,” Dave explained to a ten-year-old Benson, “and if you see one, you should check inside.”    
  
He showed Benson what to look for, and when he found one, Dave told him to open it up.    
  
“Why?”   
  
“These boxes grow the Pizza Plant. They’re a rare gift left behind from the old humans, before most of them left to go hide away in Burrows.”   
  
“What’s a Pizza Plant.”    
  
“Well, they’re endangered.”    
  
“Why?”   
  
“Because they’re delicious,” said Dave, opening up the box and pulling out what looked like a fuzzy green triangle. He handed it over to Benson. “Here. Try some.” 

Benson took a bite, and he had to admit, there was something to it. It tasted almost fermented, but not in a bad way - if that made any sense. 

“If they’re endangered,” said Benson, slowly. “Shouldn’t we leave some behind to reproduce?”    
  
Dave took the rest of the Pizza, which appeared to circular in shape, and popped it all into his mouth. “Nah. Takes too long. Just eat as much as you can find.” 

Benson nodded. He and Dave had been living together for a long time, by then. They trusted each other. 

Benson was a few years older when he and Dave met Kipo for the first time. They tried to pull a scam (the Burrow girl was obviously inexperienced with such things, and the one wearing the animal skin was just… well, mildly feral, so it shouldn’t have been that hard, right?) but it didn’t work out so naturally they just went back later to steal a few choice things, and then they bolted. And naturally this resulted in a bike chase turned car chase turned allyship with the Surface girl and the Burrow girl both. And, overally, it was just weird as hell.    
  
“Are all Burrow people purple?” He asked Dave, under his breath. 

“Yes,” said Dave, matter-of-factly. “And they all have names that start with K.”    
  
Benson nodded. 

“So,” said Benson. “What’s your name?”   
  
“Kipo!” Said Kipo, brightly. Benson was surprised - it seemed at least one of Dave’s statements about Burrow people was true, after all. “And that’s Bonecrusher,” Kipo added, pointing at Wolf who was stalking ahead of them, scouting territory before waving the other through.    
  
Benson raised an eyebrow. “Bonecrusher?”   
  
“Well, she actually told me it’s Wolf. But when we first met she said Bonecrusher, and now I don’t know what’s actually her real name at all.” Kipo ran up to meet Wolf. “Is it Nadia? Natelia? Nutella?”   
  
“What’re you doing?”   
  
“Trying to guess her name.”    
  
“It’s  _ Wolf,”  _ said Wolf, gruffly. “We’ve had this conversation before.”    
  
“Well,  _ duh.  _ But the first time you said you were Bonecrusher, and now I don’t know who I should trust!”

Benson liked travelling with them. It was like, suddenly, along with his older/younger brother (depending on the time), he adopted two sisters. Sure, one of them was purple and had a tendency to rush into danger, and the other had a (pet? Friend? Emotional support?) stick

named Stalky, but they worked together well, and Benson wouldn’t trade it for the world. 

They walked a lot, and they ran a lot (though when they found themselves running it was normally forced upon them by whatever horrible pawn of Scarlemagne’s had been sent after them), and they talked throughout it all. Kipo argued with Dave about the universe (“Dave, stars are, in the simplest terms, big ball so gas burning far, far away from here.” “No they’re where lightbulbs go when they die fuck you.”) and Wolf tried to listen to conversations while still actively avoiding being a part of them, and sometimes Benson passed around the walkman and let them all take a turn listening (Wolf liked the music more than she’d ever admit to, and Kipo enjoyed it, though she prefered anything acoustic to rap) and it was great. 

While they were going through the desert with the Lumbercats, Benson was lucky enough to spot a Pizza Plant.

The cardboard box was the right size and shape, hidden among the golden sands, nestled between buildings and sculls and cactuses, shielded from the cruelty of generations. Dave warned him that it might be difficult to find Pizza Plants in the desert - after all, not much life can survive there, and Pizza Plants are  _ endangered -  _ but Benson found it, and dug it out of the dunes, and he sat down to have a snack break while Kipo and Wolf watch, perplexed.    
  
“Benson,” Wolf said, slowly, and Benson actually looked up - it’s the most she’d said to him in… days, actually. Wolf normally spoke with Kipo, if she wanted to talk at all. 

“Hm?”   
  
“What…” Wolf shook her head. “What are you doing?”   
  
“Eating a Pizza Plant,” said Benson, his words slightly muffled as he chewed. 

“Is this something you eat on the Surface?” Asks Kipo. 

Somewhere in the background, Wolf began to say ‘No’, but she was cut off by Dave’s “OF COURSE!” and Benson’s, “It’s really good, you have to try some.” 

Kipo reasoned something along the lines of, “Well, I guess if I want to really act like a  _ Surface Person _ I should eat like one, right?” and took a big bite of the Pizza Plant. 

“Hm. Kinda like cave moss lasagna,” she remarked. “But also not.”    
  
“That’s the mold!” Dave said, sounding chipper and chill as ever, and Wolf facepalms behind him.

Kipo actually really liked it, and ate another slice, Dave patting her on the back and saying how proud of her he was for trying Surface food, and Wolf just avoided saying anything, because she didn’t know what they were thinking but she didn’t want to get roped into the madness of it all. 

When it was all over, and they made it to the Burrow, and then ran from the Burrow because it was crashed by Scarlemagne, and then solved that problem and ran back to the Burrow again, they settled into a certain state of calm. Kipo went back to school, and Benson and Wolf joined, too, though they had a hard time adjusting at first. And sometimes that cute boy would meet Benson’s eyes and he’d find himself blushing, and at the beginning Wolf would find herself arguing with teachers to let her take Stalky into class with her, but after a week or so they figured things out. They missed aspects of the Surface, though, all of them. Kipo missed the sun, and the rain, and the Lumbercats and the Snakes she rocked out with in the desert. Wolf missed the petty fights and the stars. Dave missed the adventure, mostly, though he won’t say it. Benson missed lots of things, of course, though the first that came to mind were the Pizza Plants. He kept trying to figure out how to bring them up to Mr. Kipo’s Dad, but he could never find the right time. 

They all called him Mr. Kipo’s Dad. Except Kipo, who just called him Dad. 

Sometimes, Wolf calls him Dad, too, when she’s really tired or not thinking too much about it. 

Even after they escaped Scarlemagne, even after all the fighting was finally over, Wolf kept her name. The other Burrow people thought it was a bit odd, of course, but they let it slide. She was from the Surface, after all, and they just did things differently there, didn’t they? Sometimes Kipo wondered if it was he real name after all, or if it wasn’t and she hadn’t been joking about Bonecrusher (Kipo didn’t know much about the Surface, after all; things were different there, how was she to know if Wolf had been joking or not?), or maybe that it hadn’t been her name, once, but it was now. Kipo didn’t ask, though. Wolf didn’t like to talk about her past, and Kipo didn’t like to pry. Kipo would joke about it, sometimes, though, when it was a good day and she knew Wolf wouldn’t be bothered.    
  
“Is your name… Cassandra?”   
  
“No.”    
  
“Cassiopeia?”   
  
“No.”

“Catalina? Catelyn? Catey?”   
  
“No, no, no…” Wolf looked up. “Benson, why’d you get her that baby book.”    
  
He looked like he was trying to hold back a laugh. “Found it in the ruins, on our way here,” he said. “Figured she’d like it.”   
  


“Cayleigh? Cearia? Cecialia? Cearra? Cazzy?”

And so they settled into an easy rhythm, the four of them. At first they all crashed at Kipo’s house together - Benson and Dave in the living room, of course, Benson on the couch and Dave on the floor, and Wolf stayed with Kipo in her room. But as time went on, Benson and Dave moved out, got their own apartment in the Burrow. They still came over to visit, of course. And they were always hanging out together. Burrow people were annoying, and it was exhausting to hang around them all day, even if Benson thought one of them in particular was incredibly cute. 

“Just talk to him already!” Dave would say. 

“About  _ what?” _

“Dunno,” Dave would shrug, obviously unprepared for this part of the conversation (even though it was known to happen about once a week), “talk to him about music, or something.”    
  
“But what if he thinks I’m…”    
  
“Okay, okay, wait for music. What about science?”   
  
“Science?”   
  
“Worked with the Newton Wolves.” 

“...because they were the Newton Wolves.” 

“Just hit him with the classic rap!  _ The Earth is flat, that’s just common sense…”  _

And then Benson would groan and continue to pine, and Kipo’s dad would race into the room at the sound of the spreading of false information (“Dave, for the last time, the Earth is a  _ sphere.”  _ “How would  _ you  _ know, Burrow Boy? Ever seen it from space?” “...” “That’s what I  _ thought. _ ”) and Wolf would growl unprompted, and that was just life. 

In the new Burrow, there was a stream, just like in the old one, and they would walk down to it sometimes, just the four of them. Sometimes just the three of them, if Dave was too old or young to join in at the moment. 

And one day, a miracle happened. 

A thin, square, cardboard box floated down the river.    
  
“Is that…?” Benson’s eyes grew wide.    
  
“A PIZZA PLANT!!!” Kipo finished. 

Wolf averted her eyes. She didn’t want to be a witness to what was sure to be a crime scene once Mr. Kipo’s Dad arrived. 

Carefully, Benson handed Kipo his walkman (which he still carried with him at all times) and then slipped into the water, swimming against the current and plucking the box safely out of the stream. Slowly but surely, Benson climbed out of the water, careful to keep the box safe. And once Kipo was by his side once more, he opened the box for both of them to see.    
  
“It’s full,” said Kipo, so shocked her voice was almost at a whisper.    
  
“What do we do now?”   
  
Together, they closed the box, and then looked up to meet each other's eyes. 

“...we could show Dad.” 

Mr. Kipo’s Dad was not nearly as impressed as they thought he was going to be.

“Kipo, what… what is this?”   
  
“Pizza, dad!!! It’s so good, you have to try it!!!” She shot him one of her signature grins, and Wolf seemed to be hiding in her hands. She might have been laughing or crying, though which exactly, it was hard to tell. 

“Oh yeah!” Dave said, coming out of a shed. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that, Mr. Kipo’s Dad!” 

Dave quickly explained about the Pizza Plants he’d seen on the surface, how he knew a little about their growing habits but that they’d been diminishing in numbers and he was scared they were extinct, and he was hoping that Mr. Kipo’s Dad would know something about growing them or maybe cloning them (something science-y) so that they could bring them back and eat them again. 

  
Mr. Kipo’s Dad had no idea what to say. He looked behind his daughter, Dave, and Benson, to Wolf, who had only just looked up to meet his eyes.    
  
“I don’t really know how to phrase this,” he said, slowly. “But pizza isn’t a rare plant. It’s a food from a couple hundred years ago, and as a general rule of thumb, you should  _ not  _ be eating things you find lying around in cardboard boxes in rivers.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked this! I love Kipo and I hope that our fandom grows with time :D


End file.
